Belgian prosecutor: No bomb in Brussels shopping mall

A suspect arrested during an anti-terror operation at a Brussels shopping mall appears to have been wearing a fake suicide vest, according to prosecutors.

The man, identified by Brussels prosecutors Tuesday as “J.B,” born in 1990, called the police at 5:30 a.m. to say that someone had picked him up in a car and dropped him off with an explosive belt on the central shopping street of Rue Neuve.

J.B. told police the device would be detonated remotely from a distance, according to a statement released by Brussels prosecutors. Authorities issued an alert to evacuate all surrounding stores near the City2 mall and a security perimeter was established while the belt was removed from the man and examined by the explosives unit.

Brussels prosecutors said the belt turned out to be a fake, containing salt and biscuits. Police discovered the material used to make the fake belt-bonb when they later searched the home of J.B.'s mother.

“There was no terror nor bomb, it was just a backpack with cookies,” Eric Van der Sypt, a Belgian prosecutor, told POLITICO.

The suspect later told police that his original story that a car had picked him up and dropped him off near the mall was fabricated. J.B. said he had given police a random registration number from a car he saw on the street, whose owners were brought in for questioning and promptly released.

Brussels prosecutors said they had requested a medical examination of J.B., who has a history of mental-health problems. In 2014, he contacted police to say that he was being encouraged to go to Syria to join the Islamic State. His statements were investigated but could not be corroborated. .

People near the City2 shopping center tweeted photos of the lockdown Tuesday.

Prime Minister Charles Michel held an emergency meeting with members of his security cabinet Tuesday morning and decided not to increase the country's terror threat level, which remains at three.

The incident comes after police warned last week that a group of armed Syrian fighters were on their way to Brussels and planned to target the City2 mall, an American fast food restaurant and a police station, and just days after three men were charged with "attempted terrorist murder" after a series of anti-terror raids around the city.